


We Are The Storytellers

by escapedreality



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak, The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: AU, Afghanistan, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Journalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapedreality/pseuds/escapedreality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the letter sitting in her pocket, Max had called Liesel a Word Shaker. It was gift, he'd promised. When Liesel meets MacKenzie McHale, an energetic American T.V. producer, on a dusty tarmac in Afghanistan she knows she's met another one. </p><p>The Book Thief/Newsroom modern AU crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Marcus Zusak wrote cleverly and beautifully human characters and Aaron Sorkin wrote witty and idealist characters and they were just dying to meet. Both the book and the show are very different kinds of stories so I'm trying to find a common ground, grounded in part in the canon of both works. 
> 
> Likely multi-part, if not a full chaptered story. Enjoy!

When Liesel graduated from  _Universität_  and told Rudy her plan, he had called her a  _saumensch_ and given her a hug with a stolen kiss on her forehead. She smacked him lightly on his head, knocking off his beret. He'd picked it up to pose in an exaggerated manner that made Liesel laugh.

" _Ja, leutnant_ , I'll be there before you." she joked. Rudy had just hugged her once again and her heart beat furiously. " _Saukerl_?" she asked, reverting back to the familiar and beloved insult for her best friend. He glanced down at her and she grabbed his neck to pull his face to hers and steal a kiss of her own. Tommy Müller whooped behind them.

.

When Liesel told mama, she was called  _saumensch_  and received a smack and a hug all in the same motion. Papa had smiled how he always does, soft and reassuring, placed a hand on Rosa's back with a soft, "Mama, let's focus on the celebration,  _ja?_ It seems our  _saumensch_  was illiterate not so long ago." Liesel had blushed, because it was true, and Mama had guffawed. Papa reached into the paper bag he'd been carrying and pulled out a wrapped and rectangular gift and handed it to his daughter. 

" _Glückwünsche, liebling._ You will be wonderful."

.

When Liesel told Max over email, he'd sent his congratulations back in a letter that took two weeks to arrive from the States, was addressed to the "Word Shaker" and written in three different languages. He went out of his way to use so many English idioms and Liesel has to translate each word of the Hebrew that the letter took longer than it should have to read. It ended in German, well written but not with the same ease with which Max spoke it. 

"Your words make people want to listen, Liesel, remember that. P.S. I did tell you to practice your idioms, I will accept no blame for translation difficulties," he wrote. 

.

When Liesel had asked her editor the man had given her an incredulous look. She had been working with the paper since her second year in university, when she had begged to learn. She spent most of her time sorting papers and hanging on every tidbit of information writers and editors through her way. Her second year working for a minimal salary she had followed her favorite reporter, a funny young man named Arthur Berg, around Munich as he searched for stories. She would hold the tape recorder during interview and loved every moment.

"You know, Liesel," he would say, pockets and hands stuffed with cookies and pastries taken from the pitiful events hosted by local politicians, "This is one of the best perks of journalism."

"Stealing food?"

"I don't think of it as stealing, per se," Berg would reason, in the peculiar way he did. His rules of the world were specific and flexible, especially when it came to food. "It's more of a commission, for attending the event."

"I stole a book once," Liesel offered.

"You can't eat books, sweetheart," Berg laughed, offering a dry pastry stuffed with grape jelly to her. 

Her third year at the paper, she decided to officially study English at university. She moved into small flat with Rudy's younger sister who had just started university herself. Twice a week she would skype Max in New York and practice.

"Sick as a dog is a non-sense phrase," she said. 

"So is 'It's raining cats and dogs'" Max countered, noting that yes the English language had a weird fixation on cats and dogs specifically. But he told her he was proud she was sticking with her studies and claimed all future successes. 

"The only reason I learned it so well is that you and Walter constantly forgot what language you were speaking in when you talked to me," Liesel scolded.  

"Just trying to spread the American way!"

"Saukerl."

"And you Germans seem to have a weird fixation on pigs."

Her fourth year at the paper was the last at university and she had been writing stories of her own, delighting at the small thrill that appeared each time "by Liesel Meminger" appeared in the byline. She shadowed the international desk now, eager to participate on stories about the States and using her English skills to her advantage, still calling Max every once and while in a panic of not knowing a word or phrase. 

"The next presidential election isn't until 2008? So why so much focus on politicians. Do you ever talk about anything else?" she asked rapidly without greeting.

"Guten Abend, Leisel," Max greeted pointedly, while sipping the second coffee of the morning, "And because we narrow down the front runners through primary races."

Liesel made a face and then with exaggerated politeness, "Dearest Maxwell?"

"Yes?"

"Can you please explain primary elections again?"

Her fifth year at the paper, pending on her editor's approval, she would follow her favorite reporter from the international desk and his goofball, yet incredible photographer, to Bagram Air Base and then on from there, to cover Germany's contribution to America's war. It was a story eight years in the making, ever since she had found Max sitting in the living room, having only spent two weeks in Germany on his year-long exchange program, repeating "That's my home,". She had held his hand as the buildings collapsed.

Four years later, when Rudy Steiner decided to go to a military university with, improbably, twitching Tommy Müller, her decision was made.

.

She arrives after a near nose-dive of a landing with a one duffel bag and her laptop bag. She's haphazardly equipped with the clothing she thinks she might need and in retrospect, definitely not enough ballpoint pens. She wears well worn hiking boots from a vacation with Mama and Papa two years ago, ill-fitting black pants, one of Rudy's old t-shirt from the academy, and a brand new hiking jacket, which the sales clerk had assured her would suit her purposes. Two minutes after landing and she has already sweat through all these layers. 

She double checks her laptop and new notepad and dismayed, decides she most certainly doesn't have enough pens and is fairly certain she forgot batteries for her recorder. When she zips her gear away she hears a rapid British voice spouting off instructions.

A fashionable woman is making her way off the plane. Her pants fit well, her boots are new, and her black "Army" shirt betrays no sweat stains. She has one small bag slung over her shoulder. 

"Jim hurry up now, Cathy and Zack said they would grab the cameras, Captain Henry is supposed to meet us any moment, OH! And we have to remember to check back in with New York and did Charlie Skinner leave a message? I tried to check but I don't understand this phone to be honest.  And--"

"MAC!" the man, presumably Jim shouts, helping unload camera gear onto the dusty tarmac. Liesel can't read the organization on the side but feels somewhat inadequate next to the broadcast news. "Mac, relax."

The woman tucks a loose strand of hair back into her ponytail, shakes her arms out and sighs. She catches sight of Liesel watching. "Do I know you?"

"Oh, no, I--" Liesel starts, the English feeling heavy and awkward. She points to Jannick, who is chatting away with a public affairs officer, "We're embedding, with German troops. I'm Liesel Meminger, this is my first time here," she adds, lamely.

"Ah will you be with any other of the ISAF forces then? Because last time I was in Afghanistan we spent a week with a company of Italian soldiers and ow, Jim that hurt!" the woman complained. Jim rolled his eyes. 

"Nice to meet you Liesel, I'm Jim Harper and this is my boss,"

"MacKenzie McHale, nice to meet you."


	2. Chapter 2

"Why do you think she came?" MacKenzie asked Jim as he reviewed the day's take with Zack on a bulky laptop. Cathy was catching a welcome half hour of sleep behind the pair of them, using their bodies to block the light coming through the doorway. Jim removed one headphone from his ear, his face cast in a pale blue glow as he looked up and gave an inarticulate grunt.

"I said, why do you think that German girl is here. She was so small-looking, I don't understand how she possibly is old enough to drive a car much less come to a war zone," Mac expanded, speaking in her familiar rapidly falling and rising pattern. Eyes back on the screen, but one ear open for his boss's rambling, Jim pointed out the door to where a couple privates were being egged on in their wrestling. One was a skinny red-headed boy, every muscle defined more by a simple lack of body fat than any extensive workout. The other was a short, stocky boy with his head shaved and half a sleeve of tattoos in progress. 

A couple corporals were placing bets and their platoon leader, a green second lieutenant less than a year out of Texas A&M watched them warily from a distance. 

"Older than them," Jim said shrugging. Mac sighed and for a moment, Jim hoped that would be the end of the conversation.

It was a foolish hope.

"But really, Jim. I mean you came for the money, I came because,"

"You're crazy," Jim muttered under his breath.

"Because, well,  _him_. Cathy and Zack were mostly dragged along on this particular endeavor but everyone has a very specific reason they get started. I just wonder..."

"Mac," Jim interrupted, sitting up, removing his headphones fully, and facing his colleague. "Not to be rude, but what is your fixation on some random German reporter?"

"Oh, I don't know," Mac sighed, flapping her arms uselessly. "I think maybe she reminded me of myself when I started."

Jim snorted in disbelief, "There was no way you were ever that QUIET!" he finished in a yelp as the red-head from outside came barreling through the entrance of the tent and slammed into Jim. The two collapsed in a heap on the floor and victorious private whooped outside. One of the corporals waved on money from the others. The lieutenant came sprinting over as the skinny pile of muscle straightened into a position of attention.

"So sorry, sir!"

"McDowell, what the fuck?" asked the lieutenant. The private repeated his apologies, this time to the officer as offered his own to Jim, who ungracefully got to his feet. Mac laughed until her eyes watered.

The German girl was momentarily forgotten. 

 .

Mac decided to go to Iraq before, in the way she decided most things: rapidly and without much thought. She decided while nursing a beer and some leftover pizza, Louboutins kicked in a corner with her go bag, which she grabbed on her way out of her office, after she told Will about Brian. Her apartment was alarmingly sparse and that's what prompted the idea. She wasn't tied down, she wanted space, so she went.

First to London, to CNN's London bureau, where she blended in seamlessly, her father's heritage worn well on her shoulders. And somehow that was more stifling. 

She spent exactly thirteen days calling Atlanta to beg them to send her as an embed. On the fourteenth day she rounded up her crew-- Cathy and Zack, who were a package duo in everything they did, came as cameramen. Jim Harper came as her assistant. It took every ounce of wheedling she could muster to drag him from the international news desk, a position he'd worked hard to land. To this day she insists he wanted to come, but he promises it was just to get her to shut up.

The Department of Defense was harder to work, but once she had clearance-- a group of Marine support troops-- she took it and ran. 

Jim recounts their first story only as a clusterfuck.

Admittedly, it was. Mac was so intent on getting it right the first go, getting the big one, she nearly got Jim killed twice and herself once. Embeds rarely get to interact with civilians frequently and up close and when they do, it's to the panic of the soldiers in charge of them.

Mac went inside, getting a broken translation of an elderly Iraqi woman's story and some shaky b-roll. Jim, waiting outside out of respect, got shot in the ass.

Despite some trouble sitting he had for some months, this incidentally is also the story in which Jim gained a love and respect for U.S. Marines. Don makes fun of him, but after the embeds were cleared from danger and the gunfire had stopped ringing, the Marines of alpha company, third platoon slapped him on the back and offered him their Copenhagen as he waited for the Medevac. Jim took it as a gesture of acceptance. Once in London, Jim sent back double what he'd received, and enough for the whole platoon. Mac was too ashamed to offer her hello, or her thanks.

It took a while before she could convince Atlanta to send her back, that she wasn't reckless. It too even longer to convince herself of that.

.

She went back to Iraq four months and one week later. The assignment, per Jim's suggestion and urging, wasn't on the effects of the coalition led war so much as the tools of it. CNN was asking for bias, a one sided, feel good story. Mac didn't do editorial, she did the news.

Jim told her that's not what it was about, that she was just cranky. 

"I'm not," she informed him as they sat in a booth at her favorite bar. Jim worked his way through his first beer as she drained her second gin and tonic.

"You get a second chance and just because your ex is doing shit stories in the States-- a downfall, in your words, which you feel some weird responsibility for-- you're going to give up a story?"

"Will has nothing to do with this!"

Jim rolled his eyes, "Christ, Mac, I know you're fond of your 'some stories have only one side' but this is a war, those nearly always have at least two, if not five to seven. Think long-form, not hard hitting. Do a two block segment that will put Will McAvoy and ACN's pitiful excuse for the evening news to shame."

"Jim, shut the fuck up, please."

She took the assignment.

.

Harrison was a curler, Wheeler played bassoon. Lee had tattoos of two ex-girlfriends names. Carson was a newlywed, Finuccia had 2 daughters, and Trent had a son on the way.

The lieutenant was from Kentucky, a lance corporal from Hawaii, and a newly 18 year old private wasn't even a full American yet. 

Their music tastes ran the gamut from country to hip hop to the one gunnery sergeant who loved jazz. Every other word in the sentence was a swear and they came up with delightfully new and vulgar sayings as the deployment went on. They were unrelenting in their verbal abuse yet cared deeply for one another. Mac was called ma'am, Jim was dude, and despite the majority's distaste for the liberal, lying media they danced and acted up for Cathy and Zack's cameras. 

Some cursed the Marine Corp on the daily and others relished firefights, excited when they got off a clean shot. Some cursed the Iraqis, using slurs that made Mac's blood boil, yet other made efforts to learn basic Arabic phrases, to offer up in greeting. They all threw candy to the young kids with smiles.

The resulting package was three blocks, and as they prepared to return to London yet again, Mac shook each of their hands and smiled. 

.

When she meets Liesel as she gets off the airplane, it's her first time in Afghanistan and first time with the Army. They've come at the tail end of the company's deployment and only have a few weeks with them before they're supposed to head north.

Mac has found a balance on her third time around, telling the Afghan story and the soldier's story. The war entered it's seventh year not so long ago and Mac's biggest obstacle is not military bureaucracy or Taliban still struggling for dominance in southern Afghanistan, but instead keeping the interest of the viewers who don't care or don't want to see their sons and daughters still dying in a war with no end in sight.

It's a tall order.

Atlanta wants her to pull out after the company they're embedded with goes home but a couple weeks feels so incomplete that she begs for more, providing her crew will stay on. They agree and with prodding, so do her bosses.

She's ready to continue in Kandahar but the Captain Henry on his last day informs her that the U.S. Army is sending her team north. 

"The CO is Captain Kugler, and my superiors assure me he's been well-informed of your arrival. The battalion is stationed at Camp Marmal in Balkh province. It's technically HQ for the Germans but we have two other installations in the province so the U.S. is well represented," he informs her, reading from his notes.

"You said the Germans?"

"Yeah, most of their military is stationed there. They're great fun, if you get a chance to talk to them. Spent four years stationed near Stuttgart, excellent beer and some beautiful women. Not as beautiful of my wife of course," he amended with a smile. Mac laughed, the captain was infamously infatuated with his wife of three years.

"Thank you, Captain. Have a safe trip home."

.

"JIM!"

The man in question rolled over irritably, lifting his makeshift sleeping mask and rubbing his eyes. "What could you possibly want?" he whined.

"It's fate. I had a bad feeling about this move but now I will satisfy my journalistic curiosity. It's a German base, the girl is bound to be there."

"This again? Mac, that's not journalistic curiosity, that seems like poorly concealed stalking."

"Jim, you're a Debbie Downer, you know that right?"

"I've been told," he mumbled, rolling back over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the google for base and provinces, apologies for inaccuracies. The long-form piece Mac does on the Marines is inspired by a reread of Evan Wright's fantastic book, Generation Kill (also adapted into a great t.v. show).


End file.
